Archive Testing, 1... 2... 3...

[icarus]

An Archive Of Our Own is in testing. To help facilitate this, I am slowly uploading fics there and assiduously providing feedback on what works, what doesn't. Hopefully my suggestions are helpful and not too redundant.

Please let the archive know if you note any problems:

Tanlines & Dogtags

First Signs Of Magic: Hermione Granger

A Moment Of Sin

My question for you is on tagging in the An Archive Of Our Own. Yes, it sorts by tags like delicious.

What would you like to see in tags so you can find what you want to read? What makes a good tag? How general should I be? How specific? How much should I customize tags to the content of the story? Is there such thing as "over-tagging"?

For example, for Tanlines & Dogtags I have the tags:

* drama
* pre-slash
* ust
* mild angst
* photography
* art

While for A Moment Of Sin I only used the tag:

* prostitution

I realized, huh, I'm not sure how to do this.

This is in your interest. If I tag badly, it will make it difficult for you to find what you want. It also helps me, so thank you all very much in advance.


ETA: Based on your suggestions, here's what I have for tags: http://archiveofourown.org/en/users/Icarus/profile

Length: shortfic, medium length, longfic, novel length

Character: All prominent characters are listed, even if they're not the main pairing.

Time: season, pre-OotP, where relevant.

Genre: humor, angst, romance, darkfic, drama, crack!fic, au, bdsm, pwp

Pairing generalities: rairpair, crossgen, chan

Story themes to help people beeline their searches: prostitution, polyjuice, photography, gay bar, gun kink, wingfic, crossdressing, non-con, exhibitionism, skinny dipping, etc.

Series name: Primer to the Dark Arts, Beg Me For It, Skinny Dipping, and First Signs of Magic series names (and future series names).

It's clear to me that your ability to filter and find stories will depend upon successful tagging by the authors.

Comments

[elizabeth-rice.livejournal.com]

I think I read in their community they're waiting to release their FAQ where they'll explain their features in detail.

Heh, I wrote to tell them they should use a standardised tagging system without realising that this way is so much better.

Really, they ought to explain somewhere that the tags are created by the author for the specific use of that particular author. They won't get so many people telling them why their current system wouldn't work. :)

That's a good list you've got there.

On LJ, I have defined tags by challenge, fandom, length and series.

In addition, genre is always useful. Time/timeline tags sound good but beyond pre- and post-series tags I wouldn't know how to use this one. Manga plots are divided into arcs so I could make use of that.

Now pairing, pairing generalities and themes/content - I'm not going to use those. I don't even rate my stories anymore. Too many people have used such tags against the writers.

I read a lot of Original Yaoi/Slash. What the authors do is they put up only a 1-5 paragraph summary and the genre itself is Original Yaoi. They don't use any other warnings or tags (unless they have spent a considerable amount of time in a fandom before). And ratings not at all. Well, yaoi is only applied to explicit stuff.

Anyway, I intend to give readers a full summary, in lieu of content warnings. I just hope readers would accept my decision.

It's clear to me that everyone's ability to filter and find stories will depend upon successful tagging by the authors.
I can't even rate my own fics.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I can't even rate my own fics.

Oh, really? I can't see why not.

My rating system works like this;

Detailed description of cocks, etc., and what is inserted in where, and full frontal nudity = NC-17

(If I ever wrote violence of the Rambo variety with detailed descriptions of the bloody stumps = NC-17 .)

The same scene with the camera, so to speak, focused on the kissing and the emotional content; no description of cocks, what is inserted where is left to the readers' imagination = R

(Violence where the carnage occurs off-screen and the camera focuses on the emotional fall-out = R.)

Sexual content of the non-inserting variety, kissing, sexual talk, adult situations = PG-13

Everything else = PG

Then certain subjects I tend to bump up a rating. Prostitution, discussion of off-screen rape, incest, chan, will be moved up from PG-13 to R.

[elizabeth-rice.livejournal.com]

One of my betas did explain the rating system to me before. I still hesitate.

You have explained it well. It sounds so simple on paper but when I try to apply them - confusion.

None of my stuff is higher than an R and half of them feel like they belong to the Young Adult section.

So I decided to follow the book format: title, summary, genre (optional). Less headache for me.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

This is how it was explained to me by Connie when I was trying to make NC-17 scenes in Primer to the Dark Arts conform to Fiction Alley's R-rating. She told me think of it as a camera. What does the camera show?

[elizabeth-rice.livejournal.com]

But that's just the problem.

I'm writing a story. It's not a movie, a video or even an image. It's words. Every reader's experience may be different. Every reader may imagine, visualise, or picture the story or novel differently.

So how can I imagine a camera and use a movie rating system?

There is the rating system that bookstores and libraries use: general, young adults and adults.

But I don't know how a publisher decides which story is Young Adults and which is Adults only. I don't know the criteria.

I have no intention of misleading any reader. I will provide a full summary (and maybe genre) for my future stories so there shouldn't be any room for misunderstandings.

I will do everything that I can to inform a potential reader of the kind of story s/he is about to read. Beyond that, it's out of my control.